Vatican guidelines on preventing clerical sex abuse and reporting suspect priests to the police, published on Monday, leave too much autonomy with bishops who have often been accused of covering up scandals, victims’ groups said.

The Vatican issued the guidelines to bishops’s conferences around the world with orders that bishops draw up their own rules by May 2012.

The circular letter, which was described by the Vatican as “very strong and eloquent,” follows sex abuse revelations in the US and Europe which have prompted Pope Benedict XVI to repeatedly apologise to victims.

Over the weekend, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian bishops’ conference, spoke of the church’s shame after the arrest of a priest in Liguria suspected of abusing a 16-year-old boy and giving youths cocaine.

Sent to bishops by the Vatican’s congregation for the doctrine of the faith on 3 May, the circular tells bishops to be committed to the “spiritual and psychological assistance” of victims, look more closely for signs of abuse, vet seminarians more effectively and pay more attention to those who move from one seminary to another.

While the reporting of accusations to the police is not made compulsory, bishops are told to follow “the prescriptions of civil law regarding the reporting of such crimes to the designated authority.”

Three months after Governor Scott Walker proposed to strip state, county and municipal employees and public-school teachers of their collective bargaining rights, the governor’s agenda remains stymied. Legal challenges,moves to recall Republican legislators who have sided with the governor and the fear on the part of legislative leaders of mass protests have prevented implementation.

That fear is well-founded.

The Wisconsin protests have inspired similar demonstrations in states across the country, including state Capitol confrontations in Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio and, most recently, California and New York.

Yet, the energy in Wisconsin remains unmistakable, and unrelenting.

Three months to the day after the first large demonstration against Walker’s proposal, tens of thousands of Wisconsinites returned to the great square around the state Capitol and to town and village squares across the state to declare: “This Fight is NOT Over!”

Cell Phone Video Posted Online After Incident

BALTIMORE — A woman involved in an assault that was captured on a cell phone and went viral online has been indicted on hate crime charges.

The office of the Baltimore County State’s Attorney said Teonna Monae Brown, 18, was indicted Monday on charges that included hate crime and first- and second-degree assault.

A female juvenile faces the same charges, the office said.

Police said Chrissy Polis, 22, was attacked inside a Rosedale McDonald’s restaurant on April 18. The video, recorded by an employee, was posted online later that week and quickly went viral, garnering thousands of page views on various websites.Police said Brown is also accused of attacking a woman who tried to help Polis.

A restaurant worker captured the two teenage girls viciously beating Polis on a cellphone camera. Family members acknowledged that the victim was a transsexual woman.

LONDON — Women believe sexism is still rife in the workplace and that they are disadvantaged when it comes to pay, promotion and age, a new British survey concludes.

Almost two thirds of women (63%) believe that a woman’s age is seemingly more important in the workplace than a man’s, according to the study carried out for Marie Claire magazine and women-in-business network Everywoman.

Almost half (46%) have experienced sexism and 44% said that a male colleague had made an inappropriate comment about their appearance.

Nearly four fifths (78%) said that being attractive helps them to get on better and 60% think that overweight women are discriminated against. Three fifths (60%) think that men are better at getting pay rises and 58% believe men are better at getting a promotion.

More than half (53%) do not believe positive discrimination is a good thing to ensure female representation on boards.

When asked what would have the biggest impact on climbing the career ladder, it was being given the opportunity of a mentorship that the majority wanted and to work for a female boss (58%) not a man.

Women ’still suffering sexism’

A new survey for Marie Claire and everywoman has found that nearly half (46%) of female employees have experienced sexism in the workplace.

Of the 2,913 women questioned as part of the survey, 63% said that a female employee’s age is more of an issue in the workplace than a man’s.

Over two-fifths (44%) of those polled reported having received an inappropriate comment on their appearance from a male colleague.

The survey found that appearance counts for more than ability, with over three-quarters (78%) holding the opinion that being attractive helps people achieve greater success in their careers, while 60% reported discrimination against overweight women.

Of the women polled, 60% said that male workers are more likely to get pay hikes, while 58% think that the chances of getting a promotion are higher among men.

Why are oil prices so high and volatile? McClatchy’s Kevin Hall and Robert Rankin take a look at the evidence and say that neither supply problems, demand levels, nor Middle East turmoil really seem to explain it. The answer, rather, is a huge growth in Wall Street speculation:

Some 70 percent of contracts for future oil delivery are now bought by financial speculators — largely big investment banks and hedge funds — who never take control of the oil. They just flip the contract for a quick profit.

….Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Rex Tillerson noted Thursday in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee that this year’s oil prices don’t make any economic sense, though that’s not quite how he put it. He said that current fundamentals and production costs would dictate oil in the range of $60 to $70 a barrel. That’s at least $43 cheaper than this year’s highs of $113 a barrel reached on April 29 and May 2.

Phrases such as this one, used dismissively by teenagers in what is often a casual, offhand way, can impair the health of LGBT youth long after classes end, a new study shows. The term is so pervasive, in fact, that an earlier survey found that 90% of American youth have heard “gay” used in a negative way.

A new report by the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University traced the effects of LGBT-victimizing bullying in school — including unintentional epithets like “that’s so gay,” more direct verbal harassment, and physical violence — beyond their initial sting in school hallways. Using data from the project’s survey of 245 LGBT young adults, the paper links such bullying to long-term health and developmental problems.

It found that LGBT-targeted bullying related to gender expression or sexual orientation during school years led to increased young adult depression, suicidal thoughts, social adjustment issues and risky sexual behavior. LGBT young adults that reported high levels of anti-LGBT victimization as teens were 5.6 times more likely to report suicide attempts than those victimized less frequently. They were more than twice as likely to report being clinically depressed, and they were more than twice as likely to report having been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease by young adulthood.

The report also found that young adult GBT males are targeted more frequently than their female counterparts, and that the amount of bullying a boy receives in school can help predict the health issues he will face later in life.

The report, titled “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Adolescent School Victimization: Implications for Young Adult Health and Adjustment” and published in the Journal of School Health, comes as both popular culture and policy hone in on the topic. The plot of last week’s episode of the ever-popular Fox hit show Glee, for example, revolved around quiet, biting homophobic bullying: an openly gay male was (spoiler alert!) crowned Prom Queen.

“I don’t know if these issues are getting easier to talk about, but a lot of people are willing to have the conversation,” said Jeff Kreheley, director of the LGBT Research & Communications Project at the Center for American Progress. “That has to do with the fact that a lot more people are out as L, G, B, or T than they were 10 or 15 years ago.”